Opinion | Columns
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
The lines we draw: examining the inadvertent costs of a party system
Jan. 24, 2017Group mentality is the foundation of society. It is something we rarely scrutinize. We are born into a dozen groups based on our circumstances and will join a dozen more over our lifetime. Have you ever asked about the costs of membership?
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
How a relationship with Tinder can be a self-destructive obsession for some
Jan. 24, 2017Open your eyes. You are on your back, staring at a ceiling you do not recognize. The smell of incense fills the air. You hate incense. A pungent smoke coils out of the slender brown stick’s glowing red tip and floats up towards the spinning fan. Your lip is bleeding. Your Tinder date likes it rough.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
Why hobbies are a fundamental human quality
Jan. 24, 2017It is a new year, which means there is more opportunity to create new habits. At this point in our lives, I find it is difficult to form, discover or practice hobbies. Yet, I feel that practicing hobbies, or “hobbying” (yes, I created a new word), is a fundamental quality of what it means to be human. Monkeys don’t do yoga in their spare time; dogs don’t sit down with a block of wood and create something beautiful. Only humans do. Not only is having a hobby an important aspect of being human, it is also a means of seeing the world in a new light. Hobbies deepen our experience of nature, of other people and of ourselves.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
Should we care about what celebrities say?
Jan. 23, 2017The abstract concept of celebrities has confounded and fascinated many of us as we’ve grown up. Some of us think about it more than others, regularly scrolling through celebrities’ Instagram accounts and consuming tabloid news with zeal. On the other hand, some of us ignore celebrities as much as society allows us, disenchanted by their self-appointed responsibility as the voice for the masses despite their immense privilege. Either way, these potent feelings often contribute to some sort of opinion towards celebrities in general, and the past few weeks were no exception.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
A criticism of complaints and a discussion of whether they are justifiable
Jan. 23, 2017To everyone who considers me to be some liberal guy who has way too much pent-up anger about recent issues and complains about them constantly, I apologize. Through reflection, I’ve realized all my pieces so far have been critiques. They’ll probably stay that way. My first guest piece was a critique, and my last regular piece may be as well. I consider critiques to be an opposing opinion that the critiqued could learn something from — and by no means am I exempt from this. So please, if you believe I could be doing anything different which would be beneficial in any manner, then comment on my piece, send me a message of any kind, etc. I will fully accept any criticism and try to learn.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
Americans voters have no obligation to respect or support President Trump
Jan. 22, 2017People are splitting hairs over whether protesting Donald Trump is protesting the office of the presidency or protesting his views.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
Take a walk in their shoes, and spread the love
Jan. 22, 2017Anyone who has read John Green’s “The Fault in Our Stars” is familiar with the quote, “You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, but you do have some say in who hurts you.” While I’d argue that this quote is accurate in the context of this novel, it isn’t as accurate in the grand scheme of things. In this world, you don’t get a say if you get hurt, and you often don’t have a say in who (or what) hurts you either.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
A Trump presidency is not the end of feminism
Jan. 19, 2017Well, dear reader, today is the day we have been insurmountably hoping would never come — Inauguration Day.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
The gripping power of a single tweet: 140 characters or less
Jan. 19, 2017A lot of knowledge can be packed into the tiny text boxes of Twitter — this sentence alone is less than 140 characters from start to finish.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
The life of a musician is depressing, yet interesting
Jan. 17, 2017When I was a kid, listening to music was an escape from the mundane. There was nothing I loved more than sitting in the back seat for a long drive with my headphones on. I found myself moved by catchy melodies and guitars. I loved rock ‘n’ roll so much, I wanted to play the guitar myself. My dad bought me a small, no-name nylon-string acoustic at the guitar shop where I signed up to take weekly lessons. The first time I picked up that cheap instrument, I was disappointed to learn that playing the guitar wasn’t something I could do naturally. I didn’t understand how the thing worked. Once I started taking lessons, I found that practicing was boring and painful.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
Art and time: how we measure intangible value in a quantifiable world
Jan. 17, 2017Like fish that don’t know they’re in water, we don’t often think about how the structure of our world shapes our behavior. This week I’d like to take a look at how capitalism affects the way we measure value. To do that, we’ll first travel to the art world.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
Recognize your shortcomings; view them as a challenge to incite change
Jan. 16, 2017Students of UF and Gainesville residents: I have something to reveal to you. It’s something I’ve spent a lot of time refl ecting on, and it’s something I’ve only spoken of to a few close friends. It’s rather personal, so I hope I don’t make you too uncomfortable when I come clean. I made a realization over Winter Break; people who cared about me confronted me and made clear that I needed to look within myself if I was ever going to be content. I need to be open about this. I am an automaton. I’m not quite a robot in the traditional sense, but I’m far from a golem. The word robot usually implies advanced machinery or complicated electronics. In reality, I’m steam-powered, and there are fewer ones and zeros and more levers and gears. That’s not to say I’m not relatable. I’m just like any other student, despite my leadfi lled veins and spring-loaded spinal cord. I love taking walks around campus. I love Century Tower; there’s one bell in particu
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
How is it that we know so little about the real Martin Luther King Jr.?
Jan. 16, 2017Martin Luther King Jr., the 1963 March on Washington, “I have a dream”: We’re all familiar with the story. Every third Monday in January, we observe and honor the man who fought racism and paved the way for civil rights — at least, this is what most can say about him. It’s not a bad description, by any means. It’s quite beautiful, actually. The thing is, that tweet-length description of King’s legacy is incomplete. Grossly incomplete. King wasn’t simply this saintly fi gure we’ve come to martyrize: the “Santa Claus-ifi cation” of King, as renowned social-justice activist Cornel West describes. Close your eyes for a minute and conjure your image of King. You’ll likely imagine that August day when King stood before hundreds of thousands of people and told the world about his dream: one of the greatest moments in our country’s history,
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
Trump could learn a thing or two from sports
Jan. 16, 2017Being a new columnist, I haven’t yet had the opportunity to tell all you readers about me — and I don’t plan on it. There is some pleasure to the cognitive dissecting of another person’s psyche through their writing, and to those of you who read daily, I hope you’re able to discern who I am as a person by my writing. However, I’m going to completely contradict my beliefs by telling you of two things I love: sports and politics.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
How will artists react to President Trump?
Jan. 12, 2017Late in the evening of Nov. 8 of last year, a wildly entertaining electoral battle was fought before all Americans. But what was just as entertaining was reading and hearing the massive outpour of emotions and intense reactions from our country’s entertainers and artists. Think about your favorite actor or musical artist for a moment. Then, check their Twitter feed. There is a very high probability if you scroll down to early November, you’ll see some sort of election reaction, which was almost unanimously negative.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
On holiday in Mississippi: judgements meet reality
Jan. 11, 2017The wafting stench of cigarettes and sounds of jazz greeted me as I stepped off the plane and into the airport terminal in Kenner, Louisiana, just outside of New Orleans.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
Knowledge and intelligence: a few steps you can take to become smarter
Jan. 10, 2017What does it mean to be “smart?” When someone recalls obscure facts or demonstrates a remarkable feat of calculation, we say that person is smart. If someone demonstrates an unusual perspective, drawing from many sources to reach a conclusion, we may wonder how they are able to perform such mental gymnastics.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
Why we must all resist the post-truth society
Jan. 10, 2017Truth is an elusive and abstract concept. Maybe Pontius Pilate understood it best when he looked at Jesus and asked, “What is truth?” This past year has been an echo of that question. Last year was a time of ineffable emotion, like that of a disgruntled spouse who has bottled up her marital frustration for years. It was only natural that democratic decisions — Brexit, Trump — would be made in order to spite the political establishment. It was the year that statistics, journalism and facts were cast down from their thrones. The populace no longer looks to news in search of truth. Rather, we understand every news outlet to have a predisposed bias or slant, so we abandon the notion of finding objective truths.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
Weighing your options: genetic testing kits and the burden of knowledge
Jan. 9, 2017There is a lot to be said about the choice to remain blissfully ignorant, especially in regard to things we cannot change — like genetics. Having watched the science fiction film “Gattaca” on a slow day in my high school biology class with its depictions of a futuristic society driven by genetic discrimination, I am all too aware of the dangers of knowing too much about your genetic profile. So when my parents bought me the 23andMe ‘Health + Ancestry’ kit to find out more about our family’s ancestral background, I felt an unsettling mixture of anticipation and apprehension as I shipped my test tube of spit off to a California lab.
